Undivided [Book Three] COMPLETED

|04|

Everything was silent except for the whirring machines. Charlotte looked up at the rat looking man with pure hate, her heart pulling. She only knew that Newt wasn't, but what about her? Well, it isn't that important anyway. We're all getting a cure, right?

"For an experiment to provide accurate results," He explained to a silent crowd, "One needs a control group. We did our best to keep the virus from you as long as we could. But it's airborne and highly contagious." He paused, and almost seemed like he was hesitant to speak the list.

"Just bloody get on with it." Newt hissed abruptly, "We all figured we had the buggin' disease anyway. You're not breaking our hearts." She sighed silently at his response and held back an eye roll of annoyance, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

"Okay, then." Janson cleared his throat. "Most of you are immune and have helped us gather valuable data. Only three of you are considered Candidates now, but we'll go into that later. Let's go to the list. The following people are not immune. Newt. . ."

Charlotte's breath hitched in her throat as she looked straight ahead of her, eyes unwavering but filling with blurring tears.

Hearing someone else say that Newt wasn't immune struck her different, it got her harder and sunk into her bones like cancer, slowly enveloping her whole body. Hearing the second boss of this place say it hit her like a train, making her feel as if her whole body went numb instantly, and only ahead is tragedy. Hearing the words slip from someone else's mouth felt like a hurricane unleashing, and she was in the eye of the storm, nothing physically happening to her but something happening to everyone around her.

And she was completely helpless. She couldn't save him, could she? They've done these experiments for three years to get to an almost cure, but it's still not produced. How much more do they need to do in order to have their freedom?

The ginger's sage eyes flickered over to the machines humming along the back wall once again. Would putting on one of those helmets save him? Would sacrificing herself to endless experiments save him? Did she actually have a chance at saving him?

Newt wasn't immune. Her own boyfriend, or whatever you want to call them at the moment, had a rancid disease engulfing his brain, slowly spreading across it in an attempt to harvest it all. It's slowly and agonizingly tearing him apart limb by limb, not giving him a choice, not giving him a chance.

Newt wasn't immune. He wasn't immune.

"Bloody hell, quit being a baby, Tommy. Slim it nice and calm, I already thought I was going to die three years ago, it's not exactly news." Speaking of the devil, Newt was scolding Thomas, who was staring at him incredulously.

"Slim myself? That old shank just said you're not immune to the Flare. How can you—"

"I'm not worried about the bloody Flare, man. I never thought I'd still be alive at this buggin point, so shut it. If we find a cure, then we find one. If we don't, then we don't. Simple as that." Newt reasoned, and Thomas scoffed while shaking his head, bringing his gaze back down.

Charlotte could distantly hear Rat Man stop talking, but it never fully registered. It seemed as if her mind was foggy, and nothing could pull her out. Well, nothing except Minho.

"Hey." He said, grabbing her arm. She jumped, being pulled back into reality. Her gaze tore into his as he said after a concerned pause, "You don't have the Flare, Princess. You're immune."

All the ginger could do was stare at the boy before her, completely unwavering. Minho casted her a confused look, and her lips parted slightly before her eyes suddenly shifted to the wall behind him momentarily, then back down to the floor. His grip on her arm loosened and went away, his hand falling back to his side while giving Thomas a look of concern.